12:19:49 From David DeGraff (he/him) to Everyone : Peebles dislikes the term Big Bang, not the science behind it.

 

12:20:09 From Linda Billings to Everyone : @David Good point.

 

12:21:06 From Nick Nielsen to Everyone : Any successful alternative cosmological theory will have to satisfy all the results that have been derived from big bang science

 

12:21:28 From Nick Nielsen to Everyone : so a person could like the results of big bang science but still reject that cosmological model 12:22:02 From Carlos Mariscal to Everyone : There’s an ontological question about what counts as a new gene. It seems to me that paralogues can evolve enough to be considered ‘new’ genes

 

12:22:03 From Neil Manson to Everyone : Correct

 

12:22:07 From Nick Nielsen to Everyone : The two theories would be empirically equivalent up to contemporary scientific knowledge

 

12:23:13 From Andrew Kennedy to Everyone : thanks brig. nice thoughts

 

12:23:25 From Eric Hughes to Everyone : Peebles thinks that our experimental evidence is strong for expansion but quite weak for inflation that by tale immediately preceded it. All he's saying is that our knowledge has a horizon that doesn't reach back to zero

 

12:24:03 From David DeGraff (he/him) to Everyone : And that time is less than one second.

 

12:25:26 From Jim Schwartz to Everyone : Hmm.  Fine arts grant to set up a full symphony's worth of instruments in a wind tunnel?

 

12:25:42 From Eric Hughes to Everyone : @Neil: "How many galaxies" is exactly the kind of question as about angels and pinheads. Did any of them answer that they didn't have enough evidence to warrant a yes or no answer?

 

12:26:14 From Kathryn Denning to Everyone : Looking forward to reading your paper, Neil! (This one, right? https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/14746700.2019.1710348) 

 

12:28:06 From Neil Manson to Everyone : Yes, that's it! I also have a longer unpublished version that includes the results about the number of galaxies.

 

12:28:32 From Ted Peters to Everyone : Could we get an accurate link?

 

12:28:32 From Kathryn Denning to Everyone : Awesome -- would love to see that when you're ready to share

 

12:28:53 From Kathryn Denning to Everyone : https:// www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/14746700.2019.1710348

 

12:28:56 From Nick Nielsen to Everyone : irreducible complexity, in Behe's language

 

12:29:50 From Eric Hughes to Everyone : Nietzsche paraphrased: God is anything that stops thought.

 

12:30:33 From Nick Nielsen to Everyone : The ultimate thought-terminating cliche

 

12:30:34 From John Traphagan to Everyone : I've never observed life on Mars--no-one has.  But that doesn't mean it isn't worth exploring Mars to look and see if there is life there.  I really don't understand the point here.

 

12:31:10 From Kelly Smith to Everyone : @Eric or to be a bit less in your face: the problem with religious “hypotheses” is not that they are impossible, it’s that they are too comfortable.

 

12:32:00 From Eric Hughes to Everyone : Any assumption taken for granted is a thesis that's not explored

 

12:32:00 From Neil Manson to Everyone : Eric! I take back what I said. My mistake. The cosmologists did not say that they thought there were an infinite number of galaxies *in my survey*. [Although most of them that I ask do think that.] They said they think that, if there is a multiverse, there are infinitely many other universes, not just finitely many other universes. Big difference! 

 

12:32:08 From John Traphagan to Everyone : Also, any explanation based on "faith"--whatever that is--are not open to verifiability. 

 

12:32:10 From Ted Peters to Everyone : Is degree of comfort a measurable scientific criterion to evaluate evidence? 

 

12:32:25 From Neil Manson to Everyone : Here you go! 

 

12:32:32 From Nick Nielsen to Everyone : @Neil Yes, big difference. 

 

12:33:00 From John Traphagan to Everyone : I don't think degree of comfort can be measured.  What you can measure is the subjective reporting of degree of comfort.

 

12:33:09 From Neil Manson to Everyone : e-mail me if you want the longer, unpublished version. It discusses some additional survey questions.

 

12:34:26 From Dr Sheri Wells-Jensen to Everyone : I don't like thinking about how it's possible that the Earth really need not exist: it gives me the existential squeaks... but it definitely seems to me that my life / the planet / the universe really need not exist at all. It seems optional to me. I can't imagine what if anything is given. Yike!

 

12:34:34 From Kathryn Denning to Everyone : Thanks everyone for a generative and fascinating series of conversations! Hope we meet again somehow before 2022 : )  

 

12:35:11 From Carlos Mariscal to Everyone : Same, Kathryn! You’re a great interlocutor, I’m looking forward to chatting with you again in the future!

 

12:44:31 From Carlos Mariscal to Everyone : We could also have the Zoom conference for the first day or two and then have the in-person conference afterward.

 

12:45:44 From Carlos Mariscal to Everyone : AbSciCon also has some big overview talks, to bring people up to speed on subjects outside their area. That might be equally important here with anthropology, philosophy of science, ethics, communications, art, etc.

 

12:49:14 From Jim Schwartz to Everyone : Ted, Linda, and Erik: To complete the thought: If your interest in space comes from Elon Musk, it's going to be tougher for your to care about microbes than if your interest in space came from, e.g., an astrobiology class.

 

12:50:02 From Neil Manson to Everyone : Carlos - excellent idea! Were those pre-recorded?

 

12:50:31 From Carlos Mariscal to Everyone : @Neil – No, but I don’t see a reason why they couldn’t be. Might save some time!